


Warm Safe Place

by Sholio



Category: White Collar
Genre: Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Fluff, Future Fic, Hurt/Comfort, Multi, Warm and Fuzzy Feelings, showering
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-04-13
Updated: 2012-04-13
Packaged: 2017-11-03 13:37:23
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,534
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/381899
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Sholio/pseuds/Sholio
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Total fluff + Peter h/c. So fluffy you could probably knit it into a sweater. Vague season three spoilers, takes place in some indefinite, probably post-anklet future.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Warm Safe Place

The first person Peter shot in the line of duty was Vincent Adler. The second was a small-time fence named Jason Carroll, and for a similar reason. 

Carroll shouldn't have been this much trouble. He was just a kid, a stupid kid in over his head. But then he got spooked and pressed six inches of razor-sharp steel to Neal's jugular.

"Don't do this, Jason," Peter said. "You hear those sirens? It's over. Put it down. We can still cut a deal."

The knife drew a bright red line of blood on Neal's white skin. Neal was perfectly still, his eyes wide and fixed on Peter. Trusting Peter to get him out of this.

_Pretend it's a target at the range,_ Peter told himself, _not a human being, not Neal's life if you miss._ "Don't do this, Jason," he said, and it was half command and half prayer. _Don't do this. Don't make ME do this._

"Fuck you, fed," Carroll spat, and his hand twitched, and Peter went cold, went completely still inside. He squeezed the trigger, and Neal fell to his knees, hand pressed to his throat, as Carroll toppled to the pavement.

"Neal," Peter said, kneeling beside him.

"I'm okay," Neal said shakily, though it sounded like he wasn't sure himself. Peter peeled Neal's fingers away, sticky with blood. The cut was thin and shallow, some two inches long. Peter touched it, felt Neal's pulse throb under his fingertips.

"You're going to live," he said gruffly, all he could say because SWAT and the rest of his team were spilling into the area. Peter sat back on his heels, Neal's blood tacky between his thumb and forefinger. Jason Carroll had fallen on his back, eyes open to the sky.

Jason Carroll was twenty-two years old. Just a kid, a kid who was far too smart in some ways and, in other ways, too stupid for his own good. A kid like Neal might have been, given a different set of circumstances. A kid who could have, like Neal, found a better way eventually, if Peter hadn't taken that opportunity away from him.

Peter's hand was shaking so hard he could barely hold his gun when Diana took it away from him.

 

*

There were questions and more questions and about a million forms to fill out, and all the while Neal stuck by his side as if the two of them were connected by an invisible tether.

He wanted Neal there and at the same time wished he'd go away. Peter was managing to hold it together -- barely -- his hands perfectly steady and his voice even, every "i" dotted, every "t" crossed. But glancing over at Neal, seeing the butterfly bandages on the long perfect line of Neal's throat -- the throat he'd caressed and kissed, in stolen moments in the interstices of their lives -- made him slip that much closer to an edge that he couldn't cross, _wouldn't_ cross, until he could find a private space.

He hadn't really felt Adler's death. Not deeply. The FBI psychiatrist had thought he was repressing. El had thought he was too distracted with the U-boat treasure debacle to really focus on it. And maybe the reason why this was hitting him so hard now was because he hadn't let himself feel it then -- he wasn't sure.

All he knew was that the need to get out of the FBI building, to get _home_ , was growing like a physical force in him.

Time stopped, started, stuttered. He didn't remember walking to his car, but he couldn't get his key to work; his hand was shaking too much. "Damn it," Peter whispered, and Neal's hand closed over his. Neal's fingers felt hot.

"You want me to drive?" Neal asked quietly, his eyes large and searching Peter's face, for what, Peter didn't know.

"All right," Peter said, and let his head rest against the passenger-side window, closing his eyes. The thought occurred to him belatedly that he wasn't sure Neal had a valid license. And probably letting him drive was a bad idea anyway. And probably he didn't care.

He floated, until the car stopped, and then he opened his eyes. "You can --" he said, and then paused. Neal didn't live with them, but sometimes he slept at the Burkes', and sometimes he preferred to be in his own space. Today Neal was both comforter and grim reminder, in equal parts. Peter wanted him there. Didn't want him there. Wasn't sure which.

Neal waited, but Peter couldn't tell what he was waiting for -- what either of them were waiting for. "Yeah," Neal said, "yeah, you're a little bit ... yeah." He opened the passenger-side door, started to reach for Peter's elbow and then let Peter get out under his own power.

El was waiting at the door. "Oh hon," was all she said, which meant probably someone had called her. Peter found himself on the couch without quite knowing how he got there. El was against one side of him, pressed along him from knee to shoulder, and Neal was on the other side, his hand folded over Peter's. And still, despite their proximity, Peter was cold. All-over cold. Shivering.

"A hot shower, maybe," El said. "I'll go get clean towels. Can you get him upstairs?"

"I've got it," Neal said. Their voices were a little bit hollow, as if underwater.

El leaned into him, kissed his temple and cheek and the side of his mouth, then her warmth was gone and he turned to follow her like a houseplant inclining towards the sun.

"Oh, you're still in there," Neal said. He sounded teasing and impatient and Peter wasn't exactly sure what else. "Do you think you can get up?"

"I'm entirely capable of getting up," he retorted, and to prove it, walked upstairs under his own power. He tried to ignore Neal, who hovered a step behind him as if Neal thought he was going to fall backwards down the stairs at any moment. 

In the bathroom they stripped him -- "I can do this," he protested, because he really was feeling more together, more aware, by the minute, but El said, "We know" and they kept doing it anyway: El stripping off his pants, Neal sliding Peter's shirt off his shoulders. They herded him into the shower, and must have shed their own clothing somewhere along the way, because he found himself trapped under the hot cascade of water with warm, wet, beloved bodies holding him in. It really wasn't even big enough for two people, let alone three -- "We need a bigger shower," he said, as they clashed elbows and hips and knees. El just giggled, while Neal reached under her arm for the shampoo.

It went against his nature to relax and let them do everything, but with El murmuring soothing nothings and Neal pushing Peter's head under the spray to shampoo his hair, it was more trouble than it was worth to try to get away. So he just let them, closing his eyes and relaxing into the feeling of Neal's soapy fingers scritching his scalp, El lightly stroking his back while the hot water cascaded down.

"You feel warmer now," Neal murmured, bowing his head under the falling water to kiss Peter's collarbone, the side of Peter's neck -- the place where, on Neal, Carroll's knife had rested. But Neal was safe, the three of them safe together.

How could he be other than warm, Peter wondered, with both of them so warm around him?

El squirmed a slippery arm between Peter's chest and Neal's shoulder to shut off the water. They dried each other, all three of them, using every towel in the bathroom -- Peter took care with the shallow bandaged cut on Neal's neck, kissing lightly beside it, while El trailed gentle kisses on Peter's shoulder and across to Neal's chest. 

They left the bathroom floor a welter of shed clothing and damp towels, and padded barefoot and naked into the bedroom. Late afternoon sunlight still slanted through the window, pooling on the bed. El pulled Peter down; Neal hesitated, and Peter drew him after them.

"I don't think I really want to --" Peter admitted, and neither of them said anything to that, just folded him in their arms, one on either side, like bulwarks buttressing him against the world. One or the other of them pulled the covers up; he couldn't see, with his face buried in pillows and El's shoulder.

"I'm supposed to protect _you_ ," he said into the soft skin above her breast.

Neal laid an arm over him from behind, burrowed against him, half-dried spikes of hair tickling Peter's cheek. "You always do," Neal whispered against the side of his face. "You did today. Let someone else have a turn."

He was wrapped up in them anyway. Couldn't get away if he tried. Didn't want to.

"Dinner ..." El said, though he only half-heard her, drifting muzzily.

"We'll order in," Neal said over the top of his head. "When we're ready to get up."

"When we're ready," she agreed, her voice vibrating against his cheek.

If they spoke more, Peter didn't hear it -- wrapped in them, safe in them, he slept.


End file.
